John Doran: The Jolly Lad book launch tour comes to Rochester

John Doran, editor of music and arts site The Quietus, is heading to The Billabong Club in Rochester on May 19 to promote his new book ‘The Jolly Lad’.

In an evening of spoken word and music performances, John will be reading extracts from the book accompanied by Norwiegan noise band Arabrot. There is also a full supporting cast of Medway performers including Barry Fentiman Hall, Thomas Kelly, Stuart Turner and The Reactor Core Is Splendid, with the evening rounded off by a set from Punching Swans.

The book, published by Strange Attractor, is loosely based on John’s widely read MENK column for VICE magazine, and is a memoir about recovery from alcoholism, mental illness, and substance abuse. It’s also concerned with the healing power of music, how memory defines us, the redemption offered by fatherhood and what it means to be working class.

“Makes Withnail & I look like Little House On The Prairie.” – Caitlin Moran

John Doran is the co-founder and editor of The Quietus website. He lives in Hackney, London, with his girlfriend and three year old son and has written for the BBC, the Guardian, the WIRE, Metal Hammer, The Stool Pigeon, VICE, the Word, NME, Drowned In Sound, Louder Than War and Careless Talk Costs Lives. He co-runs the Quietus Phonographic Corporation record label – which he helped set up to promote the music of East India Youth, Sex Swing and Grumbling Fur – and the Quietus Lithographic Corporation publishing venture. He is also an occasional broadcaster for NOISEY and BBC TV and radio.